Explanation For Liberal Professors

October 10, 2005|A.R. Liboff Delray Beach

One common complaint among conservatives has to do with the strong liberal bent of university faculties. It is instructive to look at this question in the light of the present debate over whether to include intelligent design when teaching science.

Physics, chemistry, biology, geology and astronomy professors can hardly be faulted for aligning themselves with liberalism when the conservative movement in this country has increasingly moved toward an anti-science position. The know-nothing wing of the Republican Party seeks to eliminate hundreds of years of human understanding, substituting our most prized, careful and diligent discoveries with a literal reading of the Bible. This attitude is exemplified by conservative stalwarts, such as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, and our president, each of whom has outspokenly courted the intelligent design movement.

It simply makes no sense for science professionals to support those who are trying to distort our present understanding of the world for political advantage, whether this relates to evolution, the age of the universe or when human life begins.

One can readily understand such backward views by the poorly educated, whether here or in more primitive countries. However, it is clear that many who support creationism or intelligent design in science classes do have high school degrees. I conclude from this that the longstanding national shame of science education in our country is now coming to bitter fruition. And, as a former professor of physics, I suspect that although many of our political leaders may have excelled in their studies in pre-law and the like, they either had dismal records in their science classes or they never bothered to take any science work to begin with.

Given the anti-science bedfellows that conservatives so highly prize, it is easy to predict that the political leaning of university professors will become even more liberal in the future.